Palestinians in the GTA appeal to federal government to help loved ones flee Gaza

2023/10/24 Leave a comment

As always, the response will be judged in relation to other groups fleeing violence like Syria, Ukraine, Afghanistan and others. Also as always, there will be degrees of inconsistency, and, security concerns regarding possible Hamas supporters.

Largely academic for the moment until there is a corridor for civilians to flee, which likely will be a secondary priority compared to Canadian citizens and Permanent Residents:

A group of Palestinians living in the GTA are appealing to the federal government to bring family members living in Gaza to Canada faster than standard immigration policies allow.

Milton local and permanent resident Abdallah Alhamadni says they’re hoping Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) will create a humanitarian pathway for Palestinians fleeing from the Israel-Hamas war, similar to those implemented for people escaping violence in places like Syria and Ukraine.

“I have a great hope, it’s not impossible to do that,” said Alhamadni, adding Canada has a reputation for helping people around the world find safe haven in the country during times of crises.

Source: Palestinians in the GTA appeal to federal government to help loved ones flee Gaza – CBC.ca

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Canada-U.S. refugee pact changes expected to ‘exacerbate existing threats’: memo

2023/10/23 Leave a comment

It may, but to date the number of irregular arrivals remains under 100, a small number compared to likely visa and permit overstays:

A newly released memo shows federal officials warned last spring that expanding a bilateral refugee pact to the entire Canada-U.S. border would likely fuel smuggling networks and encourage people to seek more dangerous, remote crossing routes.

Officials feared the development would also strain RCMP resources as irregular migrants dispersed more widely across the vast border.

The April memo, made public by Public Safety Canada through the Access to Information Act, was prepared in advance of a Cross-Border Crime Forum meeting with American representatives.

Under the Safe Third Country Agreement, implemented in 2004, Canada and the United States recognize each other as havens to seek protection.

The pact has long allowed either country to turn back a prospective refugee who showed up at a land port of entry along the Canada-U.S. border — unless eligible for an exemption — on the basis they must pursue their claim in the country where they first arrived.

However, until this year it did not apply to those who crossed between official entry points.

On March 24, during U.S. President Joe Biden’s visit to Ottawa, the two countries announced the Safe Third Country Agreement would cover the entire land border effective the following day.

The move followed concern and debate about increases in irregular migration to both Canada and the United States.

The internal memo said the Cross-Border Crime Forum was an opportunity to reaffirm Canada’s commitment to ensuring fair, orderly migration between the two countries, in part through support for expansion of the refugee agreement.

The memo noted there was a drop in the number of irregular border interceptions by the RCMP between March 25 and April 25.

But “Despite preliminary positive results related to irregular migration volumes, changes to the (Safe Third Country Agreement) are expected to change the criminal threat environment and exacerbate existing threats to the Canada-U.S. border,” it noted.

It said individuals may be motivated to cross the border via more dangerous and remote routes in order to avoid law enforcement and circumvent the expanded protocol.

It is “highly likely that human smuggling networks will expand their operations and play a vital role in these clandestine entries” by providing services such as safe houses, fraudulent documents and transportation to and from the border, the memo said

“Human smuggling creates significant risks for irregular migrants and exposes them to dangerous conditions. Irregular crossings in remote, rural, or isolated locations may result in physical injury or fatalities.”

In addition, the memo said, the RCMP is aware that irregular migrants may become victims of physical or sexual abuse or human trafficking during their passage to Canada.

Irregular migration through isolated regions puts responding RCMP members’ health and safety at risk, the memo added. “These activities also produce challenges on the RCMP’s resources as irregular migrants become less concentrated and more dispersed across the Canada-U.S. border.”

The memo also warned that organized crime groups might use shifting irregular migration routes along the border to smuggle illicit commodities including drugs, guns and tobacco.

The internal warnings echoed concerns the Canadian Council for Refugees voiced upon expansion of the Safe Third Country Agreement. In that sense, the content of the memo is not surprising, said Gauri Sreenivasan, a co-executive director at the council.

“What’s very concerning is it underscores how clearly the government was aware of the dangers that were associated with closing down the border,” she said in an interview.

The council has consistently argued against the refugee pact, saying the U.S. is not always a safe country for people fleeing persecution.

The best public policy is to allow a claimant to show up safely at a border crossing and to hear their case fairly, Sreenivasan said. “There is nothing illegal about asking for protection. In fact, it’s a right protected under international human rights law.”

In late March, just after expansion of the refugee agreement, eight people drowned in the St. Lawrence River when an apparent attempt to smuggle them into the U.S. went awry.

A statement issued following the Cross-Border Crime Forum meeting in late April said cabinet members from the two countries asked officials to review recent incidents along the border to identify opportunities to improve intelligence, detection and interdiction to disrupt cross-border smuggling, investigate events and hold people accountable.

RCMP spokeswoman Marie-Eve Breton says co-operative efforts “have demonstrated that we can respond to the evolving threat environment encountered at the border.”

When people crossing between ports of entry are intercepted by the RCMP or local police, they are brought to a designated port of entry providing there are no national security or criminality concerns identified, Breton said. Once at the port of entry, the Canada Border Services Agency will then determine whether or not the claim is eligible under the Safe Third Country Agreement.

The border service agency says it works closely with Canadian and U.S. partners to ensure the lawful, safe and humane treatment of refugee claimants while maintaining border security.

“It is illegal to enter between ports of entry and it is not safe,” said border agency spokesperson Maria Ladouceur. “We encourage asylum seekers to cross the border at designated ports of entry.”

Breton also urged border-crossers to follow the rules. “This process is safer, faster and according to the law.”

Source: Canada-U.S. refugee pact changes expected to ‘exacerbate existing threats’: memo

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Germany: illegal immigration set to exceed record high

2023/10/23 Leave a comment

Helps explain the rise of the AfD:

Data released by the German Federal Police on Saturday showed that 21,366 individuals illegally entered Germany in September.

The number  — the single highest monthly tabulation of “unauthorized entries” into the country since February 2016, when 25,650 came after the peak of the so-called “refugee crisis” — follows a seven-month trend of increasingly high entry numbers.

Police data shows that 92,119 individuals illegally entered Germany between January and September of 2023, putting the country on track to exceed the 112,000 people that illegally entered in 2016.

Illegal migration, long a topic of hot debate across Europe and within Germany, has continued to put pressure on politicians to come up with an effective migration policy, something they have so far failed to do.

Scholz says Germany needs to conduct mass deportation of illegals

On Friday, leaders from the country’s three governing coalition parties met in Berlin to further discuss the issue.

Speaking to reporters from the German weekly publication Der Spiegel, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said, “We must finally deport on a grand scale those who have no right to stay in Germany.”

At the same time, Scholz underscored the need for Germany to take in individuals truly entitled to asylum, as well as attracting more skilled immigrants into the country’s aging workforce.

Scholz was reported as saying “a whole bundle of measures” were needed to address the issue of illegal migration into the EU — among them, hardening the bloc’s external borders and increasing Germany’s control of its own borders with EU neighbors.

Despite the principle of freedom of movement within the Schengen Area, Germany recently began conducting stops at its borders with the Czech Republic, Poland and Switzerland in an effort to confront the problem of illegal entries. Such controls already exist at Germany’s border with Austria.

The Federal Police statistics also come at a time when the opposition CDU/CSU has pitched the creation of a small working group between themselves and the government as a possible vehicle for finally getting a grip on the socially divisive issue.

Opposition pitches ‘German migration pact’

Friedrich Merz, who leads the conservative opposition, recently met with Scholz to discuss the issue, presenting him with a 26-point list of demands, including an annual cap on the number of people allowed to enter the country [200,000].

On Friday, Merz followed up with a letter to the chancellor pitching the idea of a balanced bi-partisan group.

Speaking to party members on Saturday, Merz said, “If we want to maintain social cohesion in this country, we must resolve this problem now.”

Lars Klingbeil, the leader of Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) greeted the opportunity to work with the opposition, calling it, “a good signal to citizens that we in the democratic middle can work with one another.”

“I expect to quickly find a common solution,” he added.

Still, Klingbeil confessed he did not believe in the concept of migration caps, saying he could not imagine the state would be so heartless as to turn away those facing true political persecution if such a cap had already been reached.

Merz’s idea is to create what he called a “German migration pact,” with measures designed to decisively curb illegal entries as a way to take pressure off overburdened municipalities and restore public trust in government.

The issue of immigration has become increasingly central to German politics, giving rise, among others, to the growing popularity of the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD), which is currently polling around 22% nationwide — far ahead of all three ruling coalition parties.

Source: Germany: illegal immigration set to exceed record high – DW (English)

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Most gateway cities are prone to wildly unstable housing, but there is one place that’s figured it out

2023/10/23 Leave a comment

Good account of David Ley’s work in analyzing the various longer term factors behind high housing costs in cities like Vancouver (arguably also Toronto) reflecting land giveaways, short term thinking and an unshaken belief in the advantages of wealthy immigrants among politicians in relation to business immigration programs (fortunately, Canada ended its program).

Also a bit of wanting to be “world class” cities without appreciating the downsides:

For anyone interested in a crash course on the recent history of Vancouver’s housing crisis, they need to look no further than the work of professor David Ley.

In 2010, Prof. Ley wrote a seminal book, Millionaire Migrants: Trans‐Pacific Life Lines, on the impact of large amounts of cash poured into Vancouver’s property market following Expo 86. Now, he’s released a follow-up book, Housing Booms in Gateway Cities, which looks at cities that are disproportionately impacted by real estate investment.

Of course, Vancouver is among them. So too is London, Hong Kong, Sydney and Singapore – the outlier in the group that does not have a housing crisis.

A gateway city is a city through which international trade and immigrant labour is part of its economic engine, which makes it a vibrant and cosmopolitan urban centre. Gateway cities are also prone to wildly unstable housing markets and social inequality. Prof. Ley, a recent recipient of the Order of Canada, found that in the cities he travelled to and investigated – with the exception of Singapore – there has been a significant decoupling between the price of housing and incomes. In other words, many people can no longer buy a home with the amount they make.

“Of course, the old story of labour economics is that labour markets and housing markets are linked together, so house prices go up as people prosper in the labour market,” Prof. Ley said in an interview. “Well, that is clearly out the window in gateway cities. So what is it that is causing this tremendous uncoupling that we see on three different continents, Europe, North America and Asia? That’s question No. 1.

“Question No. 2 is what are the consequences of this decoupling? When we’re thinking of affordability, we think of inequality and potentially even instability – political instability – which could reflect itself in people’s behaviour at the ballot box. The argument I make with Hong Kong is lack of housing is one of the reasons students are rioting.

“An argument could be made that it causes the marginalization of the young, which we find in all of these cities. … That the housing wealth belongs to people of my generation, and for people of my kids’ generation, it’s a totally different story,” said Prof. Ley.

The third question is, what is the government doing about the problem?

His 2010 book dove into the influx of East Asian wealth that was reshaping Vancouver, the result, he said, of the provincial government’s courting of Asian money that began around the time of Expo 86, which he refers to in the new book as “a marketing venture.” That led to the purchase of the Expo 86 lands by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-Shing, a controversial $320-million deal that, in turn, opened the floodgates to a torrent of new money.

Shortly after the purchase, writes Prof. Ley, Hong Kong’s four largest property developers began to snap up Vancouver real estate.

The new money was not a matter of serendipity. The decision to sell off the Expo lands in its entirety, instead of piecemeal, was clearly intended to attract a foreign investor with deep pockets. And it worked.

The investment came in waves, starting with Hong Kong buyers who were looking for a safe place to land after the 1997 handover to China, followed by Taiwanese buyers, and eventually buyers from Mainland China.

In Millionaire Migrants, Prof. Ley has a line graph that shows house prices in Greater Vancouver moving upwards in lockstep with net domestic migration.

The governments of the day saw benefits in growing tax revenues and growing homeowner equity for its citizens.

As global and domestic investors fuelled the market, the relationship between the real estate industry and the government also became an especially cozy one. In the new book, he points out that development companies were the single largest group of donors to the BC Liberal Party.

But a problem emerged. By 2016, at the peak of the boom, the divergence between local incomes and home prices in Vancouver had never been wider. That same gap had grown in London, Sydney and Hong Kong as well.

Only Singapore maintained a parallel growth between incomes and home prices. Prof. Ley said that’s because that city’s real estate market is state-controlled, with 80 per cent of Singaporean residents owning leasehold properties. Foreign buying and investor buying is tightly controlled and hugely taxed. Singapore raised its foreign-buyer tax to a whopping 60 per cent and local investors get taxed 20 per cent on second properties.

He also discovered that Singaporeans (and Hong Kongers) were active investors in London, where there were few restrictions on global investment.

In Vancouver, existing homeowners reaped the benefits of sky-high real estate prices. But boomer-age parents began to see that their children were being priced out of the property market, and those who could buy in were taking on a lifetime of mortgage debt. Renters who thought they had homes discovered their landlord had other plans for their high-priced assets. Displacement through renovictions, or “no-fault evictions,” (such as when the landlord says a relative will be moving in) became rampant.

And yet, when questioned throughout the 2013 to 2016 boom, public officials said they couldn’t meddle with homeowner equity, or even acquire the data to prove that foreign money had entered the market. It was painfully ironic, in light of the fact that the government had courted the money via trade missions and, at the federal level, offered Canadian citizenship in exchange for business investment, as part of a now-defunct scheme called the Immigrant Investor Program. Tens of thousands of Asian investors came to Canada through the program, intended to create jobs. Instead, many of those new investors chose to buy properties in Vancouver, and no one could blame them. Vancouver housing was a highly lucrative investment. The city had built an economy around it: local investors too were in on the action.

However, the program was recognized as a policy failure and finally cancelled. After so many years, there was no easy way to turn the ship around.

A key Angus Reid Foundation survey in 2015 identified widespread public fury at a situation that had seemingly gone out of control. All three levels of government eventually paid the price at the ballot box for failing to grasp the growing misery of its electorate, including the Conservative federal government, the BC Liberal Party and the municipal-level Vision Vancouver party.

Responding to public backlash and growing media scrutiny, housing affordability became the key election platform for all parties.

We have now entered a phase of potential “re-regulation,” writes Prof. Ley, with “attempts to re-regulate a housing market made dysfunctional by the incessant flow of unregulated investment capital and the marketization of state policy within a neo-liberal regime. Substantial golden visa immigration, in addition to offshore buyers, established a strong transnational residential sales network between Vancouver and East Asia after 1986, adding significant speculative investment to local demand. By 2016, the aspiration of home ownership as asset-based welfare had reached a dead end for many residents.”

The “growth coalition” had “decimated affordability, precariously inflated mortgage debt loads, shut out first-time buyers, and aggravated spiralling inequality.”

Is there a way to narrow the gap between incomes and home prices?

Prof. Ley said that “cooling off” measures need to be implemented in a continuous way, as in Singapore, not simply as a one-off solution.

“With current policies, I see little prospect that there will be a narrowing of the decoupling gap,” Prof. Ley said. “There has to be much more determination to control the entire property investment picture, foreign and local, and build the right kind of supply, that is truly affordable supply.”

Source: Most gateway cities are prone to wildly unstable housing, but there is one place that’s figured it out

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Canadians divided on whether impact of immigration is positive or negative: Canseco poll

2023/10/21 Leave a comment

Another poll indicating decreased support, likely reflecting concerns over housing, healthcare and infrastructure:

In September, only three per cent of Canadians selected immigration when asked to either choose between nine concerns or offer one of their own. Housing, homelessness and poverty (25 per cent), health care (24 per cent) and the economy and jobs (20 per cent) continue to dominate nationwide.

Canada is in a unique generational divide when it comes to what is keeping us awake at night. Young adults are struggling to become homeowners, their middle-aged counterparts worry about finances and Canada’s oldest residents are concerned about the viability of the health-care system. In the heat of a federal political campaign – even one that is technically two years away – immigration can be seen as a hindrance on each of these three pressing issues.

When Research Co. and Glacier Media asked Canadians earlier this month, 45 per cent told us that immigration is having a “mostly positive” effect in Canada, while 38 per cent believe it is having a “mostly negative” effect and 17 per cent are undecided. This year’s survey outlines a significant shift from the way Canadians felt in February 2022, when positive perceptions of immigration were nine points higher (54 per cent) and negative ones were 12 points lower (26 per cent).

In 2023, only in two provinces – Quebec and British Columbia – do we find majorities of residents looking at immigration in a positive light (54 per cent and 51 per cent, respectively). The proportions are lower in Saskatchewan and Manitoba (46 per cent), Ontario (41 per cent), Atlantic Canada (also 41 per cent) and Alberta (34 per cent).

The anti-immigrant sentiment that is sometimes present in parts of Europe is not appearing in Canada. We continue to see 75 per cent of Canadians who think the work and talent of immigrants makes Canada better, as well as 65 per cent who believe immigrants should only be allowed in Canada if they adopt Canadian values.

One issue where the numbers are moving is our vision of the country. There is a virtual tie when we ask Canadians if they would prefer the “mosaic” model, where cultural differences are preserved (45 per cent), or the “melting pot”, where immigrants assimilate and blend into society (42 per cent). In July 2021, the “mosaic” had a 12-point lead over the “melting pot” (47 per cent to 35 per cent).

On the vision question, the gender divide is fascinating. Practically half of Canadian men (47 per cent) choose the “melting pot,” while a similar proportion of Canadian women (48 per cent) prefer the “mosaic.”

The strident debate over illegal immigration that has played a role in American politics for the past four decades has never been present in Canada. Still, some perceptions are changing. In this month’s survey, practically two in five Canadians (39 per cent) think the number of legal immigrants who are allowed to relocate in Canada should decrease, up 14 points since February 2022. More thana third (37 per cent, down two points) would retain the same levels, while 17 per cent would increase immigration (down eight points).

In similar fashion to what is observed in the United States, ideology plays a role in the way we feel about immigration levels. More than two in five Canadians who voted for the Liberal Party (42 per cent) and the New Democratic Party (NDP) (46 per cent) in 2021 think the status quo is working. Only 29 per cent of Conservative Party voters concur.

While about a third of Liberals and New Democrats (32 per cent and 33 per cent, respectively) are ready to decrease the number of legal immigrants who enter Canada, the proportion jumps to 51 per cent among Conservatives.

While immigration is not rising as an issue of concern across Canada, it can become a key point of discussion for many reasons. We have seen politicians in the United States focus on immigrants – legal and illegal – to criticize the performance of governments on areas such as housing and finances. At this point, half of Conservative voters would welcome a reduction in the number of legal immigrants. The popularity of the party, and the way Canadians feel about their daily lives, will define if immigration becomes a campaign issue in 2025.

Mario Canseco is president of Research Co.

Source: Canadians divided on whether impact of immigration is positive or negative: poll – Business in Vancouver

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The Liberals win points on housing policy, but it might not change the politics

2023/10/20 Leave a comment

As I have also argued, “The new Liberal measures to increase building and alleviate the shortage, meanwhile, aren’t likely to have a palpable impact on the supply of housing for years – and not before the scheduled 2025 election.”

Paying a price for their fixation on higher levels of immigration while ignoring the impacts on housing, healthcare and infrastructure:

Don’t look now, but the Liberals are starting to win some policy debates on the housing crisis. It just might be too late for the politics.

Justin Trudeau’s Liberals spent much of 2023 getting hammered about the high price of houses, skyrocketing rents and mortgage spikes. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was making hay, and gaining ground, lambasting Mr. Trudeau by channelling the resentment about 30-year-olds living in their parents’ homes and families struggling to afford one.

For most of the year, the Liberals hemmed and hawed and declared that all the things they had already done were the greatest ever – as if they couldn’t see the problem nearly everyone was feeling.

But if you tuned into Question Period on Monday, there was Housing Minister Sean Fraser knocking back Conservative attacks with shots of his own, claiming, albeit apocryphally, that the Tories plan to raise taxes on rental units.

Liberals could, and did, claim that private-sector actors have endorsed some of their new housing measures. Four major developers said they plan to build more than 10,000 rental units between them because of the federal government’s September move to remove the GST on purpose-built rental housing. Mortgage lenders have said the tripling of the Canada Mortgage Bond Program will make a significant difference for builders.

Where the Tories were landing blows at will a few months ago, now Mr. Fraser was jousting gamely, responding to a Peterborough Conservative MP’s arguments that Liberal “inflationary spending” forced interest rates higher by pointing to a multimillion-dollar housing announcement in her riding. Though the Tories kept picking the fight, the Liberals were starting to win some of the rounds.

But if the Liberals are starting to get a grip on the issue in Question Period, it comes at a time when no one is watching. Not many people watch Commons debates, and this week, the public attention paid to Parliament was devoted almost entirely to speeches about events in the Middle East.

It’s not clear, anyway, if the Liberals can still rebuild credibility after letting the housing debate get away from them.

Their late-summer epiphany came when the public outcry was rising high and Liberal poll numbers were falling low. Their biggest new measure – that GST break – was something the Liberals promised to do in 2015 but didn’t.

Even so, the Liberals suddenly boosted housing policy on a bigger scale, with real potential. The deals Mr. Fraser is signing with cities and towns for money from Ottawa’s Housing Accelerator Fund could move the dials, too, if municipalities make rule changes that, for example, allow more triplexes to be built.

Mr. Fraser now likes to point out that the Liberal bill provides more extensive housing tax breaks than a bill Mr. Poilievre tabled in September – hence the minister’s disingenuous claim that the Conservatives would raise taxes on housing.

The Liberals now have better policy that will make a difference. But it might not change the politics for Mr. Trudeau’s government.

For starters, Mr. Poilievre’s Conservatives have had some success in making people believe that government deficit spending – and big Liberal spending, during the pandemic’s peak and now – is the cause of inflation, and therefore the cause of high interest rates.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland can argue that inflation is global and declining, and Canada’s deficits and debt are lower than most industrialized countries. And while the Liberals have been profligate spenders who showed little regard for controlling costs, there’s no reason to believe a Conservative government would take office and bring in spending cuts that would make interest rates rapidly tumble.

But those are arguments. People feel inflation. And they keep feeling it even when the pace of price increases starts to slow. Many felt the struggle of paying a high cost of housing exacerbated by a shortage of supply, and now are feeling the pinch of higher interest rates through mortgage bills or higher rents. The Bank of Canada’s rate increases seemed to park declines in Liberal poll numbers.

The new Liberal measures to increase building and alleviate the shortage, meanwhile, aren’t likely to have a palpable impact on the supply of housing for years – and not before the scheduled 2025 election.

So now the Liberals have regained their footing in the fight over who can address the housing crisis but it is still a government eight years into power hoping to win a political argument over who has the best solutions for years in the future. Mr. Fraser is starting to win debates in the Commons on housing policy, but it might be too late to make Canadians feel things will change.

Source: The Liberals win points on housing policy, but it might not change the politics

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Immigrating to Canada? The system is backlogged and at times unfair, a new report confirms

2023/10/20 Leave a comment

Pretty condemning report, reflecting political and official level weaknesses. Money quotes:

Overall, the report concluded that the Immigration Department’s ability to reduce backlogs is hampered because officials are taking in more applications than what they can handle under the immigration targets the government has set.

Another contributing factor, it said, is the failure of the immigration minister to use his authority “to apply intake controls” during the pandemic.

One despairs at times…:

Immigration applicants have long complained that newer applications are being processed ahead of the older ones, while some visa posts finalize the same files much faster than others.

Those experiences have been validated by the Auditor General in a report released Thursday that found Canada’s immigration backlogs have persisted, with the length of time some permanent residence applications are in the system ballooning in some programs.

The audit focused on eight programs that receive applications in economic, family, and refugee and humanitarian classes, and found a substantial number of applications across all programs remained backlogged at the end of 2022.

The Immigration Department aims to process 80 per cent of applications within its service standards. However, the volume of applications that remained backlogged far exceeded 20 per cent in all programs, with refugees waiting the longest for a decision.

On average, privately sponsored refugees waited 30 months for a decision, while overseas spouses or common-law partners waited an average of 15 months to be reunited with their partners in Canada, compared to the set 12-month service standards. That means, only five per cent of these refugee sponsorship cases and 56 per cent of the spousal applications were processed promptly.

The federal skilled worker program fared worst, with only three per cent of the applications meeting the six-month timeline.

Canada not abiding by ‘first-in-first-out’

The report also found that the length of time backlogged applications spent in the queue increased across all programs — indicating that the department finalized many newer applications over older ones.

In the family class, more than 21,000 applications were finalized within six months of being received, ahead of at least 25,000 older applications that remained in the inventory at the end of the year.

In the provincial nominee program, the time applications remained in the backlog had increased from 12 to 20 months from January to December last year, while for in-Canada spousal sponsorships, the age of the applications rose from 27 to 47 months.

“Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada did not consistently process applications on a first-in-first-out basis contrary to its operating principle,” said the 40-page report.

That principle was not adhered to, it said, due to other priorities such as the special resettlement program for Afghan refugess, as well as the pressure to complete large volumes of applications to meet the annual immigration targets.

Backlogs vary by country

The report also found differences in the size and age of application backlogs by country of citizenship in seven of the eight audited permanent-residence programs, particularly for government-assisted refugees, federal skilled workers and sponsored spouses who applied from abroad.

For example, in the government-assisted refugees program, more than half of the applications submitted by citizens of Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo were backlogged. By comparison, only one third of Syrian applications were backlogged.

The three countries have the most applications for government-assisted refugee sponsorships, but the visa offices are also under-resourced.

“The department continued to assign application workloads to offices without assessing whether they had enough resources to process them,” the audit said.

The Dar es Salaam office in Tanzania, for instance, had an assigned workload that was five times greater than the Rome office in Italy, even though both offices had a comparable number of staff.

Immigration officials recognized that the visa posts in sub-Saharan Africa were chronically under-resourced but continued to assign files to these offices, which have some of the highest processing volumes for family and refugee programs.

Although the department, with digital applications, has the capacity to redistribute files to let other offices to share the workload, the audit found family-class and refugee-class applications were not transferred out of the Dar es Salaam or Nairobi offices — which both have high workload and application backlogs.

“Department officials told us that they had no plans to transfer backlogged applications to other offices with available capacity, leaving these applicants to wait even longer,” said the report.

“The department did not know whether these offices had the resources they needed to process the volumes of applications assigned to them.”

Canada taking in more applications than it can handle

Overall, the report concluded that the Immigration Department’s ability to reduce backlogs is hampered because officials are taking in more applications than what they can handle under the immigration targets the government has set. (Canada’s annual permanent resident intake grew from 341,000 in 2020 to 465,000 this year.)

Another contributing factor, it said, is the failure of the immigration minister to use his authority “to apply intake controls” during the pandemic.

“From March 2020 through 2021, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada continued to accept applications to its permanent resident programs,” said the report. “But with office closures and travel restrictions, the volume of applications in its inventory grew.”

Despite the launch of a new digital assessment tool and online application portals, the report said the department did not monitor the implementation of its new automated eligibility-assessment tool to determine whether the tool was reducing processing times or to identify and resolve unintended differential outcomes for applicants.

What does the AG recommend?

The Auditor General recommends the Immigration Deportment:

Take immediate steps to identify and address differential wait times to support timely processing for all applicants;

Examine backlogged applications to identify and act on processing delays within its control, and prioritize the older backlogged applications;

Provide applicants with clear expectations of the timelines for a decision; and

Improve consistency of application processing times across its offices by matching assigned workloads with available resources.

“People who apply to Canada’s permanent resident programs should benefit from the government’s efforts to improve processing speeds regardless of their country of citizenship or the office where their application is sent for processing,” the report said

Source: Immigrating to Canada? The system is backlogged and at times unfair, a new report confirms

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Canada’s change to its Roxham Road deal is called a ‘shameful downgrading’

2023/10/17 Leave a comment

Of note. The Temporary Foreign Workers Program is economic, not humanitarian:

The federal government has been accused of downgrading its commitment to welcome 15,000 “humanitarian” migrants that it agreed to in exchange for closing down the land border to asylum seekers.

Instead of accepting 15,000 migrants on humanitarian basis, Ottawa now said 4,000 of the spots will be allocated to temporary foreign workers while the other 11,000 spaces — for permanent residence — are restricted to Colombians, Haitians and Venezuelans.

“It is a shameful downgrading of our commitment to refugee protection in the Western Hemisphere. We are deeply disappointed with the government’s backpedalling on already insufficient targets for refugee protection,” said Gauri Sreenivasan, co-executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees.

“Let us be clear, the temporary foreign worker program is not a humanitarian program. It is one designed to fulfil Canadian economic needs. It only affords temporary access and is marred by its own serious rights violations.”

In March, Ottawa and Washington expanded the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement across the entire shared border — not just at the official ports of entry.

In doing so, they closed a loophole that had been used by irregular migrants to cross from one country into the other, through unguarded border crossings such as Roxham Road in Quebec, to seek asylum.

Following the announcement, a joint statement said Canada would bring in an additional 15,000 migrants on a humanitarian basis from the Western Hemisphere over the course of the year to expand safe, regular pathways as an alternative to irregular migration. (Canada had set a target of 76,305 permanent residence spots for refugees and protected persons in 2023; the 15,000 will be on top of that.)

“We couldn’t simply shut down Roxham Road and hope that everything would resolve itself,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters at a news conference then.

“At the same time, we continue to be open to regular migrants, and we will increase the number of asylum seekers who we accept from the hemisphere — the Western Hemisphere — in order to compensate for closing these irregular crossings.”

Earlier this week, advocates who were already upset with the arrangement were shocked when Immigration Minister Marc Miller released further details about the new resettlement initiative.

Starting this fall, the permanent-residence pathway will be newly available for up to 11,000 Colombian, Haitian and Venezuelan migrants in Central or South America or the Caribbean. To qualify, they must have extended families in Canada, who are either a citizen or permanent resident.

The Canadian relative must be at least 18 years old and sign a statutory declaration that they will provide supports to the applicant to help their settlement and integration, such as helping them find housing, enrolling children in school, and registering adults for language classes.

While the humanitarian pathway has yet to open for application, immigration officials said they are on track to bring in the additional 4,000 temporary foreign workers from the Americas.

The 15,000 new arrivals would not have to meet the United Nations refugee definition — as those arriving at Roxham Road often sought to — and the Immigration Department has not clarified what the standard of humanitarian need would be.

“This is a far cry from the protection that was promised to refugee claimants when Roxham Road was closed and it is not acceptable,” said Sreenivasan.

“We urge the government to at the very least stick to their original commitment and ensure all 15,000 arrive to permanent safety in the country.”

The Immigration Department said the humanitarian program is open only to Colombian, Haitian and Venezuelans because they make up the largest volumes of irregular migrants fleeing ongoing violence and political unrest in the continent.

Those from other nationalities, it said, can still come under the temporary foreign worker program and the so-called Economic Mobility Pathways Pilot, which grants permanent residence to skilled refugees abroad if they have a Canadian job offer.

“Safe and regular migration pathway are alternatives for irregular movements, which are often dangerous ways to move across borders, where people are made vulnerable by criminal gangs and put in terrible humanitarian situations,” said department spokesperson Mary Rose Sabater.

“By providing access to regular pathways, including through existing temporary foreign worker streams, more people have access to safe migration opportunities to work in Canada.”

Sabater said the yet-to-open humanitarian program will close one year after launch or when 3,500 applications representing up to 11,000 migrants have been approved.

Source: Canada’s change to its Roxham Road deal is called a ‘shameful downgrading’

Filed under Humanitarian, Immigration Tagged with , ,

Canadian immigration update: August 2023

2023/10/17 Leave a comment

Latest monthly update. Highlights:

Two-thirds of permanent residents were former temporary residents, mainly reached a new high, mainly from International Mobility Program and the Post-Graduate Work Program. Year to date: Permanent Residents: 338,000 out of which 189,000 are former temporary residents.

Among temporary residents, the greatest growth is with respect to the International Mobility program, recently driven by “Research, educational or training programs,” over one-third of total IMP. Year to date: 605,000. The number of international students also increased dramatically (school year), year to date: 475,000.

Asylum claimants remain high, year to date: 85,000, the majority of which are inland claims, perhaps reflecting relaxed visa requirements and vetting. 

The number of new citizens remains strong, largely driven by virtual ceremonies being the default option (ill-advised IMO). Year to date: 338,000. 

Visitor visas issued year to date: 1,293,000.

Filed under Citizenship, Immigration Tagged with , ,

How Canada is using AI to catch immigration fraud — and why some say it’s a problem

2023/10/13 Leave a comment

While I understand the worries, I also find that they are overwrought, given that the only way to manage large numbers is through AI and related IT tools.

And as Kahneman’s exhaustive survey of automated vs human systems in Noise indicates, automated systems deliver greater consistency than solely human systems.

So by all means, IRCC has to make every effort to ensure no untoward bias and discrimation is embedded in these systems and ensure that the inherent discrimination in any immigration or citizenship processes, who gets in/who doesn’t, is evidence based and aligned to policy objectives:

Canada is using a new artificial intelligence tool to screen would-be international students and visitors — raising questions about what role AI should be playing in determining who gets into the country.

Immigration officials say the tool improves their ability to figure out who may be trying to game Canada’s system, and insist that, at the end of the day, it’s human beings making the final decisions.

Experts, however, say we already know that AI can reinforce very human biases. One expert, in fact, said he expects some legitimate applicants to get rejected as a result.

Rolled out officially in January, the little-known Integrity Trends Analysis Tool (ITAT) — formerly called Lighthouse or Watertower — has mined the data set of 1.4 million study-permit applications and 2.9 million visitor applications.

What it’s searching for are clues of “risk and fraud patterns” — a combination of elements that, together, may be cause for additional scrutiny on a given file.

Officials say that, among study-permit applications alone, they have already identified more than 800 “unique risk patterns.”

Through ongoing updates based on fresh data, the AI-driven apparatus not only analyses these risk patterns but also flags incoming applications that match them.

It produces reports to assist officers in Immigration Risk Assessment Units, who determine whether an application warrants further scrutiny.

“Maintaining public confidence in how our immigration system is managed is of paramount importance,” Immigration Department spokesperson Jeffrey MacDonald told the Star in an email.

“The use of ITAT has effectively allowed us to improve the way we manage risk by using technology to examine risk with a globalized lens.”

Helping with a big caseload

Each year, Canada receives millions of immigration applications — for temporary and permanent residence, as well as for citizenship — and the number has continued to grow.

The Immigration Department says the total number of decisions it renders per year increased from 4.1 million in 2018 to 5.2 million last year, with the overwhelming majority of applicants trying to obtain temporary-resident status as students, foreign workers and visitors; last year temporary-resident applications accounted for 80 per cent of the decisions the department rendered.

During the pandemic, the department was overwhelmed by skyrocketing backlogs in every single program, which spurred Ottawa to go on a hiring spree and fast-track its modernization to tackle the rising inventory of applications.

Enter: a new tool

ITAT, which was developed in-house and first piloted in the summer of 2020, is the latest instrument in the department’s tool box, one that goes beyond performing simple administrative tasks, such as responding to online inquiries, to more sophisticated functions, like detecting fraud.

MacDonald said ITAT can readily find connections across application records in immigration databases, which may include reports and dossiers produced by Canada Border Services Agency or other law enforcement bodies. The tool, he said, helps officials identify applications that share similar characteristics of previously refused applications.

He said that in order to protect the integrity of the immigration system and investigative techniques, he could not disclose details of the risk patterns that are used to assess applications.

However, MacDonald stressed that “every effort is taken to ensure risk patterns do not create actual or perceived bias as it relates to Charter-protected factors, such as gender, age, race or religion.

“These are reviewed carefully before weekly reports are distributed to risk assessment units.”

A government report about ITAT released last year did make reference to the “adverse characteristics” monitored for in an application, such as inadmissibility findings (e.g. criminality and misrepresentation) and other records of immigration violations, such as overstaying or working without authorization.

The report said that in the past, risk assessment units conducted a random sample of applications to detect frauds through various techniques, including phone calls, site visits or in-person interviews. The results of the verification activity are shared with processing officers whether or not fraudulent information was found.

The report suggested the new tool is meant to assist these investigations. MacDonald emphasized that ITAT does not recommend or make decisions on applications, and the final decisions on applications still rest with the processing officers.

Unintended influence?

However, that doesn’t mean the use of the tool won’t influence an officer’s decision-making, said Ebrahim Bagheri, director of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada’s collaborative program on responsible AI development. He said he expects human staff to wrongfully flag and reject applicants out of deference to ITAT.

Bagheri, who specializes in information retrieval, social media analytics and software and knowledge engineering, said humans tend to heed such programs too much: “You’re inclined to agree with the AI at the unconscious level, thinking — again unconsciously — there may have been things that you may have missed and the machine, which is quite rigorous, has picked up.”

While the shift toward automation, AI-assisted and data-driven decision-making is part of a global trend, immigration lawyer Mario Bellissimo says the technology is not advanced enough yet for immigration processing.

“Most of the experts are pretty much saying, relying on automated statistical tools to make decisions or to predict risk is a bad idea,” said Bellissimo, who takes a personal interest in studying the use of AI in Canadian immigration.

“AI is required to achieve precision, scale and personalization. But the tools aren’t there yet to do that without discrimination.”

The shortcomings of AI

A history of multiple marriages might be a red flag to AI, suggesting a marriage of convenience, Bellissimo said. But what could’ve been omitted in the assessment of an application were the particular facts — that the person’s first spouse had passed away, for instance, or even that the second ran away because it was a forced marriage.

“You need to know what the paradigm and what the data set is. Is it all based on the Middle East, Africa? Are there different rules?” asked Bellissimo.

“To build public confidence in data, you need external audits. You need a data scientist and a couple of immigration practitioners to basically validate (it). That’s not being done now and it’s a problem.”

Bagheri said AI can reinforce its own findings and recommendations when its findings are acted on, creating new data of rejections and approvals that conform to its conclusions.

“Let’s think about an AI system that’s telling you who’s the risk to come to Canada. It flags a certain set of applications. The officers will look at it. They will decide on the side of caution. They flag it. That goes back to the system,” he said.

“And you just think that you’re becoming more accurate where they’re just intensifying the biases.”

Bellissimo said immigration officials have been doing a poor job in communicating to the public about the tool: “There is such a worry about threat actors that they’re putting so much behind the curtain (and) the public generally has no confidence in this use.”

Bagheri said immigration officials should just limit their use of AI tools to optimize resources and administer its processes, such as using robots to answer emails, screen eligibility and triage applications — freeing up officers for the actual risk assessment and decision making.

“I think the decisions on who we welcome should be based on compassion and a welcoming approach, rather than a profiling approach,” he said.

Source: How Canada is using AI to catch immigration fraud — and why some say it’s a problem

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , ,

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